Zillow quietly removed millions of climate risk scores from the listings on its site. But will that help or harm hopeful homebuyers?

“Displaying the probability of a specific home flooding this year or within the next five years can have a significant impact on the perceived desirability of that property,” Art Carter, CEO of the California Regional Multiple Listing Service (CRMLS), told the New York Times (1).

It was Carter’s organization — the largest MLS in the U.S., representing more than 100,000 agents covering vast areas of California (2) — that spurred Zillow to act. He noted that the CRMLS was particularly concerned about the accuracy of the flood risk models.

“When we saw entire neighborhoods with a 50% probability of the home flooding this year and a 99% probability of the home flooding in the next five years, especially in areas that haven’t flooded in the last 40 to 50 years, we grew very suspicious,” Carter said.

But First Street, the firm that produced the climate risk ratings for Zillow and continues to supply them to Redfin and Realtor.com, stands by its models (3).

Founder and CEO Matthew Eby said in a statement that First Street’s models “are built on transparent, peer-reviewed science and the full methodologies are publicly available for anyone to review on our website.”

While Zillow says climate risk data “remains available elsewhere on its site,” it’s no longer front and center — meaning fewer buyers might see it.

How climate change is impacting home sales

As NASA reports, the planet has been getting warmer at a significant pace for more than a century [4], driving climate-related risks that First Street estimates will lead to a potential $1.47 trillion reduction in real estate value over the next 30 years. [5]

According to First Street’s 2025 analysis Property Prices in Peril, climate change will cause populations to move and insurance costs to soar in riskier areas, changing property values.

In fact, Dr. Jeremy Porter, First Street’s head of climate implications research, says climate change is already “transforming the economic geography of the nation.”

“It is a measurable force reshaping real estate markets and regional economies across the United States,” he said.

From 2020 to 2023, average property insurance premiums rose by more than 30%, rising the most in areas exposed to hurricanes or wildfires, according to research published by National Bureau of Economic Research (6).

Some parts of California and Florida have even become ‘insurance deserts’ — where it’s difficult or impossible for homeowners to get insurance.

Does seeing climate risk data attached to home listings affect prospective buyers? Absolutely, according to a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

The organization found that when 17.5 million random users of the real estate website Redfin saw flood risk information associated with individual properties, that data affected every aspect of house-buying, including their property search, bidding and final purchase (7).

Buyers were also willing to make trade-offs around amenities in order to own a property with a lower flood risk. Ultimately, this information “resulted in changes to property prices,” according to the NBER working paper.

Zillow’s own research has shown that “homes with extreme risk of flood and fire have a lower probability of being sold and a lower sales price compared to initial list price (8)."

Market participants aren’t necessarily denying these forces. But critics of climate-risk ratings say the issue lies with assigning a value to a single property.

Madison Condon — an associate professor of law at Boston University — is a leading expert on climate change in the context of law, finance and regulation. She believes current financial models of climate risk are inadequate.

“The First Street models might provide a good enough answer for certain questions or certain hazards,” she told the New York Times.

“But what level of accuracy is good enough changes substantially if the question is about one specific property you are about to spend your life savings on.”

Still, there aren’t a lot of alternatives. Sellers in many states aren’t required to disclose flooding or wildfire information. Plus, flood maps from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are criticized as being out of date and don’t account for intense rainfall, according to the Times (9).

Doing your due diligence on climate risk

You can’t assume a home is low-risk simply because no climate risk data is displayed on the listing.

Climate research is now a financial due diligence step — as essential as checking mortgage rates. Being armed with this information can steer buyers away from properties at higher risk.

Meanwhile, if a buyer still chooses to live in a high-risk area, at least they’ve been forewarned so they’re prepared for higher insurance premiums and could perhaps make climate-resilient home improvements.